The current practice of inserting artificial heart valves involves cutting the chest open, placing the patient on cardiopulmonary bypass, and surgically inserting the valve into an aorta. This process can take several hours and subjects the patient to significant operative mortality. While the mortality during first valve replacement surgery can be very low (less than 5%), the second surgery carries much greater operative mortality, and the third is even more risky (>15%). Consequently, first and second re-operations to replace a worn out bioprosthetic heart valve are avoided. Since a typical bioprosthesis, or tissue valve, can wear out in 10 years, these valves are typically implanted into patients 60 years old, or older. Younger patients are often recommended a mechanical valve that does not wear out, and typically does not need replacement.
Tissue valves, however, are often preferred over mechanical valves because of their better biocompatibility. Mechanical valves cause blood to clot on their components, and the patient must therefore be chronically treated with anticoagulants to eliminate the risk of major blood clots. Anticoagulant themselves, however, carry a measurable risk of bleeding and thromboembolism and are not an ideal solution. Because tissue valves do not need to be anticoagulated, they are potentially the ideal valve prosthesis, if only their durability were to be improved.
Accordingly, the goal of most tissue valve research and development, has been the improvement in valve durability so that these tissue valves can be put into patients younger than 60 or 65. Because of the operative mortality and morbidity, the objectives of all valve research and development, has been to increase the functional life span of the bioprosthesis so that it can be put into patients only once, and will last the life of the patient. This has thus far been an extremely difficult goal to reach.
There may be another option, however, for the use of tissue heart valves in the younger population. Rather than building valves that last longer, it may be more appropriate to build valves that can be routinely replaced in a way that induces negligible patient morbidity. The objectives would therefore be not to have extremely durable valves, but rather valves that can be easily removed when they begin to fail and new ones inserted. The technologies that make this possible already exist with the advances made in the field of catheter-based endovascular procedures, and the more broad field of Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS).
The field of MIS is growing at an accelerating pace. The approach involves the use of small surgical probes, cannulas, video cameras and remote staplers and suture drivers that enable surgery to be done without requiring large incisions. Most MIS is done with several small incisions, simply to allow the passage of these instruments into the patients body. The principal advantages of MIS is that the patient is subjected to less surgical trauma and has a dramatically reduced hospital stay, which in turn significantly reduces the operating costs of the clinical center. Current generation minimally invasive procedures are being carried out using endoscopes and long-reaching surgical tools. Typically, the patient's abdomen is inflated with carbon dioxide and the instruments are inserted through small incisions. The surgeons then perform the procedures using endoscopic visualization. For cardiothoracic surgery, similar small incisions are created between the ribs and the heart is placed on bypass using multiple cannulas with balloons that can selectively shut off blood flow through the heart, and direct it through oxygenators.
Other technologies are being developed to do surgery on beating hearts, as to completely avoid placing the heart on bypass. Many of these procedures involve the use of specialized catheters that deploy devices or tools that perform a wide range of procedures on the beating heart. Typical beating heart procedures are endovascular balloon dilatation of arteries and stent placement. Deployment of stents and other permanent devices has become commonplace, but to date, no successful, catheter deployable valve has been developed.
While U.S. Pat. No. 5,545,214 discloses a balloon-deployable tissue valve, the technology is similar to that of stents, and is not ideal for tissue heart valves. The material that anchors the valve in the patient's aortic root is permanently deformed through the bending of metal components, and is not intended to be re-collapsed into its original configuration. Practically the same approach is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,411,552. U.S. Pat. No. 5,554,185 discloses a means of deploying the valve by inflating of a hollow valve frame with a liquid that hardens. U.S. Pat. No. 5,545,209 describes the use of balloon technology to permanently distend and deploy an endoprosthesis, typically a vascular segment for treating abdominal aneurysm. This patent makes reference to “a tubular prosthesis disposed on said catheter over at least a portion of said balloon.” U.S. Pat. No. 5,855,601 describes a prosthetic valve affixed to a wire form that is self expanding, and has a plurality of barbs to anchor the stent in the aorta. The stent itself is of a continuous wire with a zigzag configuration, similar to the endoprostheses described above.
The major concepts disclosed by the above-mentioned patents are similar: the permanent deployment of a bioprosthetic heart valve. A permanently deployed tissue heart valve, whether it is done using MIS technology or not, is subject to the same requirements as conventional tissue valves: it must be very durable. Good durability, however, is not easily attained. The manufacturing process of tissue heart valves is very mature and complex from the quality control point of view, and only minimal improvements in valve durability have been achieved in recent years. Major improvements in valve durability are therefore not expected in the near future.
The present invention addresses the drawbacks discussed above, as well as other problems encountered with the prior art, to provide a bioprosthetic cardiovascular valve system, wherein a valve can be inserted, removed, and re-inserted using minimally invasive surgical techniques.